1921

Barnard & Westwood’s long and colourful history began in 1921 when it was founded by Albert Reginald Barnard, a World War 1 survivor who suffered injuries during the fighting which prevented him from working underground in his previous trade as a hotel printer.

Faced with the loss of his livelihood, Albert approached his Aunt, Miss Westwood, for financial backing. A schoolteacher and noted Suffragette who contributed numerous articles to the press. Miss Westwood lent Albert the money he needed and Barnard & Westwood was born

1941

With Albert’s son ‘Reg’ heading off to fight with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in World War 2, Albert began searching for a business partner to help keep the business running. Eddie Kopley, who had been running the International Master Printers Federation at the time, soon bought into the company. His experience of European printing practises had taught him the wisdom of serving a niche market with high quality products and services, and thus he set about creating a set of core values that are still upheld at Barnard & Westwood to this very day.

1946

As the company’s growth continued steadily, in 1946 Barnard & Westwood combined with E. Nicholas Printers. This led to even greater development as the business began to consolidate its position as a major player in the evolving UK printing industry.

1950

Eddie Kopley was joined by his son, Austen Kopley who worked tirelessly to develop the business and establish new links into many of companies and institutions that Barnard & Westwood continues to serve today.

1986

In recognition of producing consistent high-quality work for the Royal Household at Buckingham Palace, the company was granted a Royal Warrant by appointment to Her Majesty The Queen for Printing and Bookbinding.

1986

Austen’s son, also named Austen joined the family company and became the third generation Kopley to be involved with Barnard & Westwood. Like his father, Austen Jr. continued to strive for growth and innovation within the rapidly evolving print industry.

2003

Barnard & Westwood acquired Keypoint Bookbinding Ltd. Enabling the company to expand into areas of hand case binding, book restoration, perfect binding and bespoke presentation case making.

2010

August 2010 saw Barnard & Westwood’s move to our current home on Pakenham Street near King’s Cross in Central London.

2012

In 2012 the company was granted a Royal Warrant for Printing by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales.

2013

Barnard & Westwood were very proud to take part in The Coronation Festival, held in the gardens of Buckingham Palace to commemorate the 60^th Anniversary of The Queen’s Coronation. The once in a lifetime event, hosted by The Royal Warrant Holder’s Association gathered together over 200 Royal Warrant holding companies. The festival was open to members of the public and showcased the very best of British innovation, craft and enterprise. The event was a huge success for Barnard & Westwood and allowed our comparatively small business to share the stage with much larger, international companies while showing off our passion and skill in such a refined and niche industry.

2014

At the end of February 2014, Barnard & Westwood were selected to take part in the ‘Celebration of British Design, Craftsmanship, Engineering & Innovation Exhibition’ held at the LINLEY flagship store in Belgravia. Exhibiting alongside B&W were other great British businesses leading the field in their industries such as Nyetimber, McLaren, Bamford Watch Department, Bremont, Purdey, Rolls Royce Aerospace, JCB and of course LINLEY themselves. The Barnard & Westwood stand proudly displayed one of our old manual letterpress presses dating back to the 1800’s as well as one of our foil blocking presses on the launch evening which our bookbinding team were able to use to personalise the names of guests onto their very own Barnard & Westwood notebook.

2015

In June 2015, Barnard & Westwood went from being a historic family-run company to a 100% employee-owned enterprise. This new era of employee ownership has brought with it many positive changes for both the company and its new “partners”.